Yardening and painting, a pondering.
My blog diary entries remind me that we moved here exactly 5 years ago.
The grasshopper on our mint plants is a lovely sign of what we have achieved in the yard in 5 years. We bought a home with a sterile, stone-walled yard with any flat surface covered in artificial turf that was used as a toilet by the two dogs that had previously lived here.
We moved plants from a rural cottage garden and an urban city garden. Some survived and thrived others failed.
We increased our vertical growing area by increasing a north facing wall with a lateral slatted fence and planted climbing plants in pots. If there was an actual plan beyond attracting pollinators, we have forgotten it. The yard dances to its own tune. There is a well established jungle area in a south east facing corner, and anything else that does well are plants found in the Mediterranean.
Our insect companions are very diverse. Yesterday was the first sighting of a grasshopper. But for two years now we have had our own colony of Unarmed Stick Insects.
They live on a hugely successful climbing rose and apparently live a peaceful and non combative, sedentary life.
The pollinators love the jungle area.
When we moved into the house we were plagued by small black flies that came into the house during good weather. Making the yard more hygienic didn’t seem to make a huge improvement but this year, now the yard is more verdant there seems to be an improvement. But maybe at the scrag end of June I am talking too soon.
Five years on we are not the only creatures to have moved in.
I took these two photos within a couple of minutes in the yard yesterday.
Hot pink and bright green is one of my favourite colour combinations. When I was under 16 it was a favourite colour pairing to doodle with.Since then not so much. Last December I was thrilled to see the colour combination used for the Sugar Plum Fairies in a production of the Nutcracker in Hong Kong.
Their inspiration is easy to see in any Asian market.
At the time I remember thinking I should experiment a little with these colours at home. I had completely forgotten this until exactly this moment.
Maybe July will become a month for dabbling in hot colours and vibrant greens.
theoldmortuary.design 